Monday, April 27, 2009

I have a strange fascination with exploring to uncover things. It has lead me to wanderlust at times, bringing my boots to the trail, or even just to the sidewalk... and in-game, it has brought me much joy and delight in hunting things such as Everfrost Chips. Thus, this easter egg hunt got me very, very excited.

I was out there in Mulgore at 1am, running circles around the tents finding eggs. I didn't get to sleep until very, very late... and then was up again at 10am to start it all up on my feral druid, too! By 4pm (with breaks for gardening, housework, shower, and dailies), I had gotten the Noble title on my main, and need only to complete the Shake Your Bunny-Maker ear-ing of people on my feral druid.

I understand that the frustration of fighting for spawns of little eggs hidden around out-of-the-way towns is not for everyone, so I will share some suggestions on how to handle this achievement.

The Egg Hunt

To begin, head out to one of the "starting villages" for your faction (does not have to be your specific race). These are the towns a lowbie first reaches that have a mailbox. For horde, I found the lowest density of people in Mulgore and Brill; for Alliance, I found the least in Kharanos and Dolanaar. If you're feeling adventurous, you *can* go to the starter towns of your opposing faction to loot eggs, but you won't get the starter quests there.

Speak first to the quest-givers outside of the inn. They'll give you a starting goal and a click-use basket offhand that gives you a 60% speed boost buff. I recommend keybinding this somewhere where you can comfortably spam it. This does work while in cheetah/ghost wolf form, but does not stack: you will either be 40% speed from cheetah (etc), or 60% from the basket.

Scout the whole town, picking up eggs (which are painted in some variation of blue/purple/green) as you find them. Make note of the locations that others are camping as spawn points.

Within bushes

Under wagons

Under windowsills

Wedged into corners of buildings

On grills, tables, or racks

In fountains

Under benches and tables

In boxes

Under ramps

Up against Mailboxes

Between baskets and crates

Etc.

The "Tiny" eggs are not lootable. They are laid by players who were turned into bunnies and sat too long in one spot.

If at all possible, attempt to egg hunt during a low(er)-pop realm time: while most are sleeping, are at work, or at school. Lunchtime will probably see a heavy burst around noon to 2pm server.

Now, at this point, you can gauge how much competition you have. Is nearly everyone camping a single spot? Are there many people making circuits of the area? How heavy is your server population, and is it one of those heavy-load times of day?

Hunting Style

There are two egg-hunting methods you can choose from, or switch between: the Camper, and the Hunter.

Camping: choose the best location you can, preferably with no one else camping that clump of bushes or corner. Some spots are better than others as they may have 3-5 egg spawns within click range, some may only have 1. Your initial scouting should help with selection. Cons: this is incredibly dull, and you often feel territorial about your chosen spot. This leads to further frustration with the event, and may lead to harsh words with others who want their fluffy bunny as much as you do (I saw people cussing each other out in Goldshire). Above all, the camping method requires patience, as you wait for them to spawn in under your mouse. Sylly at Rolling Hots has written up her camping method here.

Hunting: choose a circuit that includes as many non-camped egg spawns as possible, and run it. You need a good eye for this, and keep rotating your camera with mouse-look as much as possible so you can notice the eggs better. The quicker eggs are looted, the quicker they'll respawn around the town. Keep an eye on the comings and goings of the campers, as they may alter your route. If you aren't finding many spawns on your chosen route, change it up. Usually, the best route is to circle the largest building in the town, or a couple of the buildings. Don't ignore nearby trees, as they likely hide an egg or two of their own on the far side. Cons: if there are lots of campers, you won't find much.

The Achievements

I recommend aiming first for the Chocoholic achievement, or work towards purchasing a pet bunny (or the mage book as applicable) with 100 chocolates once you complete the initial quest. This gives you lots of egg-hunting time to collect various pieces of garb and possibly even have the pet bunny drop. Everything off of the vendors except for the click-use egg (purchased for 5 chocolate) can be collected from the eggs themselves. You will need in total:

You will get an extra achievement for looting the tux shirt and pants from eggs, as well as for looting an elegant dress; these are not required for the overall title and eventual proto-drake-mount achievement, however. If you're as happy about hats as I am, you may want to pick up the Spring Circlet perma-rabbit-ears-hat for your collection, though it can also drop from the eggs themselves and is not required for any achievement.

Once you have these necessary things completed and gathered, you can leave the egg hunting behind and focus your efforts on completing the achievements:

Spring-Fling: begin working on this the moment you have your bunny pet, to cut down on travel. When your Spring Rabbit comes near someone elses' Spring Rabbit, they will... get hearts over their head and make baby bunnies using some sort of floral sorcery. You'll need to let your little sailor of a rabbit have such a fling in each of the four starting towns of your faction.

Shake Your Bunny-Maker: the flowers have a 5-minute cooldown, so take care of this as you go about your dailies and travels. Dalaran is one of the best places to find each race. The hardest to track down will usually be female dwarves, orcs, and trolls. IMPORTANT: check if the person has the 2-minute carrot-icon ears buff on them before you use your flowers on them, or you won't get credit, but you'll still be sitting there with a cooldown on your flowers.

Noble Garden: sometime in your travels you will likely end up in Stormwind or Silvermoon City, and at that time you'll want to have an egg on hand from the vendors that you yourself can hide. Either leave this for a friend or random passerby, or you can loot it yourself after dropping it!

Blushing Bride: don your tux shirt and pants, find someone wearing the peachy-pink Elegant Dress, and send them a kiss. Easy to do, just don't wait til late in the week to take care of this, or there may be fewer dress-wearers lurking about the cities.

Desert Rose: don your Spring Robes and port out from Dalaran to the Caverns of Time (Tanaris). Once out in the desert, click-use on the robes to plant a flower. Ride up past Gadgetzan into Thousand Needles/Shimmering Flats, and repeat; then head back to the flightpath at Gadgetzan to fly to Ungoro. In Ungoro, take care of your Hard-Boiled achievement (see below), then ride up to Silithus to plant your next flower. Fly from Silithus to Desolace for your fourth planting, and then hearth/travel across the world to Badlands for your final flower.

Hard Boiled: while stopping by Un'Goro, have a friend with you, or find a pug-type who also has the Blossoming Branch. Head to the hot springs on the western side of the crater and bunnify each other, then wait quietly in the water until you lay an egg.

Try to get all of this done before Children's Week begins, so that you have less pressure to do both at the same time! Good luck, and have fun :)

(Oh, and if all those Chocolate Eggs give your character a tummy ache, I recommend some Goldthorn Tea.)

2 comments:

You know...I love cadbury eggs, but I suspect that if I ate 100 of them in a sitting, I'd probably be so ill that I'd never want to touch another one ever again! Just looking at that egg graphic for four hours yesterday was enough to put me off of them!